An Eye's Gaze

"No."

The word escaped like air from a punctured lung.

"No, no, no..."

Each repetition came faster until his voice cracked. His knees hit the grass. Hands clawing at earth.

The forest pressed in. Trees leaning like mourners.

How am I supposed to escape?

The thought hit like a physical blow. The crushing certainty that he wouldn't. That this was where Kitaboshi Hokuto would die.

Alone. Forgotten.

His breath came in sharp gasps. His chest felt too small.

How can I survive this?

His apartment. His job. His mother, who hadn't called in months.

Would anyone notice he was gone?

Bitter laughter bubbled up.

"I could kill it," he whispered. "Kill that disgusting thing."

He'd never killed anything bigger than a spider. But here he was, fantasizing about driving a stick through that pink flesh. Watching those black eyes go dim.

What was wrong with him?

The forest had gone completely silent.

Not quiet. Silent. Like someone hit mute on the world. No breathing from the creature. No footsteps.

Nothing.

His heartbeat thundered in his ears.

Where was the creature? Where was anything?

Exhaustion hit him. Soul-deep weariness that made him understand why people lay down in snow and never got up.

His eyelids drooped. The forest swam out of focus.

He was dying. Not from the creature, but from his own body shutting down.

His chin touched his chest.

The grass looked so soft.

Just for a moment. Just to rest.

A voice cut through the silence. It didn't belong to the forest at all.

"Wake up, little sparrow."

His eyes snapped open.

The forest was gone. White void stretched endlessly in every direction. His fatigue had vanished completely.

He tried to move but found himself floating, weightless. His limbs moved sluggishly through empty space.

The voice came again, clearer now. Soothing.

"Are you scared?"

Hokuto twisted, searching for the source. Nothing but endless white.

Then he felt it. Something crawling over his body, invisible but suffocating. His limbs locked in place. He tried to scream but no sound came.

An eye bloomed inches from his face. Massive. Hundreds of pupils scattered across its surface like black stars, each one a different shape. Triangular. Square. Some spiraling inward infinitely.

Terror flooded his system.

"Oh, you poor thing," the eye crooned. "Look how you shake. Like a leaf in a storm."

"Fear is such a limited emotion, don't you think? So... temporary. You humans cling to it like a security blanket, but it never actually keeps you safe."

Hokuto's mind raced in circles. Paralyzed. Trapped. But something about the voice...

"You're thinking I'm some monster from your nightmares," the eye continued, almost amused. "Some cosmic horror here to devour your sanity. How wonderfully dramatic."

"But I'm not here to hurt you, little sparrow. I'm here because you called."

Called?

"Every time you whispered 'I can't do this' into your pillow. Every panic attack in the convenience store bathroom. Every night you stared at the ceiling wondering if this was all there was."

The eye's voice grew softer. More intimate.

"You've been screaming for help your entire life. I simply... answered."

Translucent hands emerged from the eye's edges. Dozens of them. They moved like kelp in deep water, reaching toward him with impossible grace.

"I can take it all away," the entity whispered. "The fear. The loneliness. The crushing weight of being so terribly, achingly ordinary."

The hands touched his skin. Cold fire. They pressed deeper, not breaking flesh but sinking through it like he was made of water.

He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The suffocation felt almost... familiar. Like drowning in his own thoughts.

The hands pushed deeper, no longer gentle. They probed through muscle and bone, searching. Hunting for something specific.

Hokuto felt the shift immediately. The maternal warmth curdled into something hungry.

"Where..." the entity whispered, voice losing its honeyed tone. "Where is it?"

More hands sprouted from the eye's surface. They dove into him with surgical precision, each one seeking, grasping at nothing.

"Where is your core?" The voice cracked with frustration. "Your mana core... WHERE IS IT?"

Mana core? What the hell is a mana core?

The dozens became hundreds. Translucent fingers tearing through his essence like pages in a book, finding only emptiness.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" The entity shrieked, its composure completely shattered. "Every human has one! EVERY SINGLE ONE!"

"YOU'RE USELESS! USELESS! USELESS! USELESS!"

The eye convulsed with rage. Two massive black hands materialized around it, each one the size of a building. Their purpose was unmistakable.

Hokuto couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't even blink. Paralyzed completely, he could only watch in silent terror as the colossal hands positioned themselves above and below him.

Like swatting a fly.

The hands slammed together.

…

A splash of water hit Hokuto's face.

Cold and unexpected. He jerked awake, blinking away droplets.

He was in a bedroom now. Plain wooden furniture, faded wallpaper, sunlight streaming through dusty windows.

He was getting sick of waking up somewhere new every time he lost consciousness.

A blade pressed against his throat.

"You know how much water I had to waste to wake you up, boy?"

A middle-aged man loomed over him, knife steady despite Hokuto's trembling. Grey streaked through his auburn hair, and deep lines carved his weathered face. His eyes were sharp, calculating. The look of someone who'd seen too much.

Hokuto tried to speak but only managed a strangled sound. His hands wouldn't stop shaking.

"Easy there," the man said, his tone shifting slightly. "You're alive. That's more than most can say after meeting one of those things."

"I.." Hokuto's voice cracked. "How do you…"

"When you were dreaming, did you see a huge eye with hundreds of pupils?"

The question hit like a physical blow. Hokuto's vision blurred with sudden tears. The memory of those translucent hands going through him made his skin crawl.

"You know about it," he whispered.

The man's grip on the knife tightened. "Show me your right hand. Now."

The blade pressed deeper against Hokuto's throat, a bead of blood forming where the steel bit into skin.

Hokuto raised his trembling hand. The man grabbed his wrist, studying his palm with deadly focus. His muscles were coiled, ready to drive the knife home at the first sign of what he was looking for.

His weathered face shifted from grim determination to confusion, then to something approaching disbelief.

The knife's pressure eased slightly.

"There's no mark," he whispered. "That should be impossible."